Shandel Sutherland 00:04
Welcome to lead for clarity where we help you, your team and your organization get to their next level by focusing on what matters and getting clarity for the future. I am Shandel Sutherland, and I am here with my wonderful co host that I love Melanie Montgomery, Melanie, we are getting through this cycle. And I love sharing this with people about our process, our playbook that we use with all of our clients. In fact, I've been doing it for over 20 years, and you have mastered teaching this process of growth of sustainable growth. And I thought maybe you could introduce what we're going to talk about today. Yeah, definitely,
Melanie Montgomery 00:45
I'm excited for today, because this stage is one of the hard stages, but I think it's so meaningful and impactful. And when we can do it and do it well and really lean in, it can really help us to grow in that positive way, and make change that we didn't even know as possible. Today, we're going to lean into the prune stage of the process.
Shandel Sutherland 01:08
I love this stage only because it's the unexpected one. But those who are tuned in to this, they will learn to embrace it. And this is what I always tell my clients, pruning will either happen to you, or you can be proactive about making it happen. And this is where we do more work with less effort. We work smarter, not harder. We focus on what's important and not urgent, or reevaluating good things that are hindering momentum. And I think this is the key. When we look at pain, it's usually something wrong, we've done something wrong, or we're missing something, there's an opportunity. Pruning is getting rid of things that served us right now, my husband, Scott, he, it needs to prune a lot of things in our yard, so that they will come back. And when he proves it, it's a little painful for me because I took flowers off that plant, they were beautiful, don't punish that plant. And that's not what's happening at all, because I've learned over and over again, when you whack that hydrangea all the way back, it will come back more fruitful. And that's what we're looking for. But to do that we have to manage this pruning stage like a boss. Yes.
Melanie Montgomery 02:34
The phrase that I think frustrates me the most. And that's a pretty bold statement is when I hear people saying well, that's how we've always done it. That is the most frustrating thing. Because what we're seeing as we've always done this way, we can't make change. And this prune stage really helps us to avoid that framework. My old mentor told me this story that really helped me to frame this in a different way. There's a family that's cooking for Christmas, and there's four generations. So the mom is teaching the daughter how to make a prime rib. So she says, Okay, you cut off both ends and put it in the pan. And all girl says, Well, Mom, why do you cut off both ends? And she's like, I don't know. That's the way my mom taught me. Why don't we ask her? So the mom now goes to her mom, the grandmother and says, Mom, why don't we cut off both ends? And she was like, I don't know, that's the way that I was taught? Well, the great grandmother's there too. And so she goes to her and she says why don't we cut off both ends. And she says, You guys are silly, I had to cut off both ends because I had a smaller pan. The reason why we did something a long time ago may not be needed now, when we just say oh, we used to do it this way. And that's what we're always going to do. We then don't give ourselves the opportunity to grow into new things and have new challenges and do things differently because our resources have changed as well.
Shandel Sutherland 03:59
That's a good start. I love that story. So the act during prune so we each time we give you an action step that A is ask the right questions, the See, collaborate and listen for answers and the tea is trim and cut. Before we go trimming and cutting, we need to ask the right questions, which is the A and the first question we're gonna ask is, am I micromanaging? And like, have I just gotten myself so deep in here that I'm really necessary when I'm not necessary? And can I let go of something and delegate more or invite collaboration? Is there something that I can do and I know Melanie, you really teach in your 12 week session about delegating, and do you want to just hit this like, what would that look like in the pruning stage? What's one of your executives that are going through this program?
Melanie Montgomery 04:53
One thing that I've noticed is that as people go through and get higher up in their career, they need to learn delegation skills because they're less of the people doing the work. And they're more supporting and coaching those who really should be doing the work. And as we progressed, that can be a hard thing to understand. Because typically, when you grow in your career, that way, you're used to being the doer, and it's a really big struggle speaking from experience to say, I need to step back and start teaching other people. And I'm really here to support that growth. As we move forward. As we move up, we need to start teaching other people so that we can create more time and space for things that then we need to do like strategic planning, or trying to figure out what needs to change or what needs to grow. And so going through that process of really figuring out what can I delegate and what can I teach. And that also gives us the framework to say, I'm going to teach the people around me so that when I'm ready to move on, I have a team of people who know all the things that I know, and are ready to take that step. And I think that that's so important. And also another question that goes back to that story here is why are we doing it this way? And really digging into what's the reasoning behind this way that we're doing something and challenge all aspects of our processes, what we have going on to really figure out, Is this the best way? Or could there be a better way? That's
Shandel Sutherland 06:19
so good. Yeah, I love the way we phrase it when we're talking about this is like, Are there areas that I think are awesome, but not my might not be? You know, what are the hidden things that need pruning? And so we're looking at individuals like Are there hidden Mavericks or renegades? We call them people who are like, yeah, they're hitting their sales number, but they're driving away our best talent, they're so hard to work with, yes, they put money on the bottom line, but at a high price. And if I took my turnover, based on what their profitability that they're bringing to the organization, and the time and energy is sucks from everyone, they are costing us money, not making us money. And then we need to look at the team, you know, in the progress stage and how we've grown. Is there any disengagement? Or are we still building trust it has the team just go, yeah, we're awesome, we'd love each other, we're so good. We're such a great team. And yet, I can see that they're not just because you invested in your team one time, you may need to be doing some investing now. And the organization is that they are doing all sorts of things. They don't need to be doing Oh, it made sense for us to, you know, make our own lemonade. When we were really ice tea makers, this is a time to figure out what products do we not need? And also, do we have unnecessary processes? And I think, Melanie, you've been really good about that for our organization to come in and take what I've been doing, you know, since the 90s, practically. And you're go, hey, I can do that in a spreadsheet. I'm like, Oh, cool. Okay, great. Go for it, you know, and that kind of leads to the see about collaborating, and listen for answers. And so Melanie, why don't you take that one, because I think you have been such a great asset to me and our collaboration. And you've taught me so much in our pruning stages.
Melanie Montgomery 08:16
I appreciate that. I've loved that. Coming into Shandel Group, you listen to my ideas. And right off the bat, you respected what I had to say in my opinions. And I think that that was so meaningful, and not necessarily something that most people encounter when they go into a new organization. As leaders, we have to recognize that we bring more to the table by being good listeners and being good facilitators, then by knowing all of the answers, early on in my career, I thought
Shandel Sutherland 08:47
in a minute, wait a minute, you need to say that again, just say it one more time for our listeners is so good.
Melanie Montgomery 08:54
Yes, as leaders, we are so much more meaningful. And we can make such a bigger impact when we're good listeners. And we're good facilitators, not when we have all the answers.
Shandel Sutherland 09:05
I hope everybody wrote that down. All right, keep going. Yeah,
Melanie Montgomery 09:09
early on in my career, I was so focused on I have to have the right answers. I have to know what to do, I have to be able to do these things. And when I transitioned into recognizing that I don't have all the answers, and I am not the smartest person in the room. And everyone in here can teach me something and help us come to a better response. And if I was to be here alone, that's in my team has really started working well together. And we started making huge milestones. It's so important as a leader to really collaborate with your team with everyone and understand that just because it didn't come from you, the answer didn't come from you doesn't mean that you're not still an important part of that facilitation process. logs
Shandel Sutherland 09:50
so good. Melanie, I love it. And I think this is the time where we're really helping our team and our individuals and the team for their blind spots like If you're listening to this in, you know, in time, there's like a looming war for us. And recession is everywhere. Like, it's just kind of a doom and gloom kind of time. And I hope maybe some people will listen to this in a year or so. And it won't be like that. But for right now, this is pruning time extraordinaire. This is a time where you proactively start pruning, and you start letting people know, hey, you know, times are uncertain. What can you ask, what are some processes? What are some things that we could do to cut so that we are ready if something like that happens, and that we were talking last last session, like, we actually did this. And so over a year ago, we did our recession proof podcast that people can go back and listen to.
Melanie Montgomery 10:47
I love that Shandel. And I think that in this stage, it's so important to communicate, communicate, we always need to hit on which is part of listening. But ask your team, what do you see that we could be doing differently include everyone. When I was an executive director, I asked my line level team members, what do you see that we could do differently that we could do to streamline or that we could cut back, and I got the most amazing answers, and we're able to really implement those, but communicate to the team, what you're doing, why you're doing it, what the goal is, so that they understand that when these changes happen, that they're necessary, and that they felt like they were involved in the process, and that they had a voice as, um, people can contribute to the change process. It's not as scary. But if we just say, okay, team, we're doing it this way today, starting now, that's where that panic sets in. Because we feel like, well, why is this happening? What are we doing? Why wasn't I asked if this is a good idea. And so it's really important to involve everyone and communicate with everyone in that space. So the last one is trim and cut. Once we've figured out what we need to trim and cut through asking the right questions and collaborating, then we start to make those changes, we really start to figure out what is not serving us well anymore. And that doesn't mean that it didn't have a really great purpose when we first started it. But how do we cut things that maybe did help us along our journey. And that can be hard, especially if we have the attachment to different things, or we have that mindset of we've always done it this way. Companies that have gone through growth, especially if they started small, and now they're quite a bit bigger. They recognize that what worked when we're really tiny is not going to work when we're a 200 people company. And that's okay. And that doesn't mean that it was bad when we did it, but we just have to figure out what will serve us better now.
Shandel Sutherland 12:44
That's so good. Yeah, cuz if you don't do this carefully, you can lose trust, you know, and if you're not really communicating through this phase, people, like you were saying, like, they're gonna lose trust in you like, they're gonna go What's wrong, and you gotta partner with the right people, you know, you got to really let people see that and get their voices into it and make sure that you're making the right cuts as you go along. I know one time, this is hysterical. We have this like, date palm thing, and it just didn't look good. And I told Scott, hey, could you, you know, prune that and he was busy. And so I just started pruning it. And oh, my gosh, like halfway through, I'm like, Ah, you need to come over here. And it turns out, it was one of the three poems that it came out. And like it needed serious pruning, for it to shine. But I also halfway through realize, like, I have good intentions here, and I'm not skilled. And it was really great to bring him in, so that we can have this long term growth and not just short term. And I think that's the magic in the pruning stage is that we're looking at long term growth, not short term, and folks that are over in the cycle of misery, they're just trying to get all they can right now. And they never use any tools for pruning.
Melanie Montgomery 14:03
I used to work in hospitality, which is very, very seasonal. So in the summertime, we were so busy, we had no time to rest. And in the wintertime, we are so slow that we had no idea what to do. And so it was so important to start pruning, as we started to get slow. That way, we didn't have to cut hours across the board. So when we started learning, okay, if we lose people through attrition at the end of the summer, then the rest of our team can still get full hours. And so also pruning on that schedule, knowing that, hey, I'm not going to hire a bunch of people at the very end of summer to get me through that last week. We're going to just have to figure it out, because that will help us when we get into that slower season.
Shandel Sutherland 14:47
So good. So some of the tools that we use as an organization is we really teach the difference between transition and change. So we call it change management for humans. And we also really use is the one thing where we really help people goal set like this is the time to set goals. Hey everybody, it's October November at you need to be setting your goals for the new year. And I know you and I are getting booked out in order to do that. And I hope more people will ask us to come be helpful. We need time optimization effectiveness, this is the time. And I think this is the most important thing is to revisit and show the key is sharpen tools from what you learned and pain and perfect purposefully connecting that old adage that you can, you can chop a lot more logs with a sharpened axe and we call it sharpening the saw from Stephen Covey. And I just recommend everyone do that, you know, get back to the basics. There are some things that you've been taught that you're not focusing on right now. Because you've been busy, right? You've been busy. And so again, I think this is a great time. Another tool that we help people do is create SOPs and this small time, like, hey, let's use this downtime to really figure out how do we do a standard operating procedure so that we know how to do it when we get busy again. So as we learn this plan, I thought we could just talk about what does this look like as an individual, if you're going to be walking yourself through this, and I think I'm a good example right now, it has been an awesome year, but it has been total change with Scott and I buying this bowling alley and starting this church has just been not. So my pain point is I have had chaos. And so through this time in the season, I've been trying to purposely connect back to my health goal, right, because my values haven't been very much but my health value thrown out the door, I eat hamburgers and hot dogs. And it's just a disaster area of, you know, a bowling alley food is what I do. And so in this time, like that would look like planting like, I need to plant and I need to put my feet down and I need to really figure out what are my goals and my progress is I've been working out the pruning part now is that I can't continue doing some things that I've been doing, and they'd been working for me during the season. So pruning is gonna look like, I really can't get up and have a leisurely morning, like my morning is gonna have to be cut, there's got to be some trimming. So I can get back to really doing what I need to do, there is going to be some pruning of just eating what's in front of me, it's really easy to do that, that's gonna have to be cut out. And I'm gonna have to be more purposeful. But I really think that if I start doing those things I've already started but I haven't been real serious about it, I think I'm gonna see some profit really soon here. And then that goal will start really paying off for me. Yeah,
Melanie Montgomery 17:44
I love that. And just to add my own example, I for good and bad, and kind of an all or nothing person I'm either all in, or I don't even try. And that can be hard to sustain over a long period of time. For example, if I decide, okay, I'm gonna go to the gym, and I'm gonna start working out more, I'm gonna go five days a week for two hours a day. And over time, like, is that really necessary is this really helpful, and trying to learn how to prune back some of those even good habits to make room for what I want to focus on now. So maybe I wasn't feeling healthy. And I really needed to go hard so that I could get that healthy cycle back into my life. And now that it's here, and I'm more active, and I'm doing things like don't have to focus all of my time and energy there. So I often will go really big on things. And then once they become part of my life, I start to realize, okay, I can start trimming here, and maybe do less. Sometimes we're even getting rid of things that are really good, and that we really enjoy to make room for more good and more things that we enjoy.
Shandel Sutherland 18:52
Why that is such a great example. Wonderful. And I think a lot of people have to do that. Like when they were single, they could work out all that time and now they have a family. And so how are they going to reorder it? Great example. Well, Melanie, that was a great time. I know I learned from our conversation and convicted always I love that. And everyone I would encourage you to send us your questions. What do you think is going to be happening? What areas do you think you're going to need to prune? And what is the profit that you think it will come from that you can email that to podcast@ or even Melanie@Shandelgroup.com Check us out online Shandelgroup.com And follow us on social media and we look forward to next time so until then, be the best you can be today.
Melanie Montgomery 19:41
Good bye
